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Show CATHOLICSJN CHIXA. OUR UNSELFISH AND DEVOTED BAND OF MISSIONARIES. Their Wort. Coupled With Privation Priva-tion Rd Hardship, l Glorious In the SiRht of God and Win Bear Fruit In Hia Own Time. From the accounts published in the daily papers of the terrible massacres In China one would infer that the only t sufferers of this awful persecution wore the missionaries 6ent out by English Eng-lish and American Bible societies. That these poor people have suffered their 8hare we do not doubt, but when all the truth la known it will be found that their loss and their suffering are very Email compared to that endured , by our Catholic missionaries there. ' Persecution is nothing new to those 1 of our faith in China. For more than 200 years unvoted missionaries and their Christian converts have had to face ordeals as cruel, if not as vast, as that which confronts these champions cham-pions of the faith today. In Fpite of the wickedness of man, in spite of tho powers of darkness, the gospel of Christ has spread in the Celestial kingdom, so called, and at the breaking J out of this last and most terrible persecution per-secution of all the number of Catholics Catho-lics was already 1.200.000 and wns daily and hourly increasing. Nowhere ! was it ever better shown that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church." and this is what gives on- ; couragement in the awful affliction nho-i Is bearing today. The early church bore ten bloody persecutions extending ; over 300 years, but in the end ros.' j triumphant from the catacombs. So let us hope it will be with the seel planted in Cl:ina and deluged with the j r blood of her heroic martyrs. j Some, and those who profess to be ! missionaries, too. have been unkind j enough to lay the blame of this uprising, upris-ing, together with its terrible conse- ' quences, at the door of the Catholic j missionary. Never was a charge more j false or slaudcious. for never was a j band of missionaries more unselfish, more devoted to the people and the country in which they labored than those who brought the Catholic faith to China. Young men. the flower of France, Belgium. Italy, Germany and Spain, left their homeu and severed every tie dear to the human heart. Bought out the most abandoned souls, the most inhospitable climate, tha most dangerous places, with the one hope and desire of bringing the gospel of Christ to those who knew him not. Here they led- the livs of the people they lived among, shared their hardships hard-ships and privations, healed their bodies and saved their souls. They . instructed the little ones, attended the pick and suffering, sought out th? abandoned and the outcast lepers and phared their frugal fare with those who had less than themselves. They asked for nothing in return but to impart im-part the blessings of Christianity. They were not the advance agents of a government seeking to steal an empire. em-pire. They were not representatives of mercantile houses looking for their own aggrandizement. Never was man more disinterested in striving to help another. The Chinese with all his barbarity is not a fool and was not slow to perceive their high purpose and to admire the faith capable of inspiring in-spiring such heroism as this. God blessed the work of the missioner. and an abundant harvest repaid his toil. . Is it all lost now? We do not think so. "In the sight of the unwise they seemed seem-ed to die, and their departure was taken for misery," but their work is j Ftill glorious in the sight of God and j will bring forth fruit in his own time. It is sincerely to be hoped that the Christian nations now clamoring for revenge will exercise Christian forbearance. for-bearance. The provocation is great, we admit, and if only half of the horrors hor-rors told Is true It is almost more than flesh and blood can endure. Hut 'vengeance is mine," said the Lon, "and I will repay," and whether it bo the individual or the nation that seeks reprisal only evil can come of it When peace and security are ouce more restored, let the nations i!;cu' Iteach the pagan the most practical and glorious lesson of Christianity tins world ever knew. |